Top of the Pops 20 & 27 July 1989

 

20/07/1989

Gary Davies: “Hello, good evening, hope you're well. Welcome to Top of the Pops on BBC1 and also in stereo on Radio 1FM. If you want to see ten chart topping acts in thirty minutes, you're in the right place. In the studio tonight we've got...”
Girl to the left of Gary Davies: “Monie Love.”
Girl to the right of Gary Davies: “Blow Monkeys”.
Girl to the right of the girl to the right of Gary Davies: “Sonia.”
Gary Davies: “We start off with the London Boys.”

[2] LONDON BOYS: london nights. Paul Ciani is away, so Stanley Appel takes over the Producing and Directing duties. Stanley has not done this for a while. His last credit was (I think, take this with a pinch of salt because it's from IMDB) 08/09/1988.

Stanley is not here to make waves. There's no really big differences between this and a Paul Ciani show. There is however one small difference. Gary Davies introduces the first act from one of the studio bridges rather than the Crow's Nest. Ring those changes, Stanley!

The London Boys have a well practiced routine. Check out the smooth way Edem Ephraim hands his microphone to Dennis Fuller before doing a backflip. The passing of the microphone is done during a move where both London Boys splay their arms, it's so smooth it's essentially unnoticeable. More obvious is when Dennis has to chuck it back to Edem, while the crowd whoop at the backflip.

[39] EARTHA KITT AND BRONSKI BEAT: cha cha heels. Promo VT. Ahh memories. I got quite accomplished at copying Eartha Kitt's “rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh” noise because it made me laugh and also irritated a girl in my sixth form study group. (I have just checked, I can still do it).

[16] MONIE LOVE: grandpa's party. BBC VT. A repeat from the 06/07/1989 edition. Gary Davies lies when he points to suggest that Monie Love is over there. She's not. However, Gary Davies has got his studio geography correct and is pointing at the stage which Monie Love appeared on two weeks ago.

CHARTS FROM 40 TO 31. A third of the way through the programme, Gary Davies finally makes it to the Crow's Nest. I was beginning to worry it was structurally unsound. Oh fudge. Jive Bunny & the Mastermixers is at [31].

[31] JIVE BUNNY& THE MASTERMIXERS: swing the mood. Oh fudge x2. Promo VT. Next please.

[27] THE BLOW MONKEYS featuring SYLVIA TELLA: choice? Hooray. It's the Blow Monkeys. That'll do. With a song about Clause 28. Nice. Disappointingly, Dr. Robert is still sporting his square look from earlier in the year when he sang with Kym Mazelle. Dr. Robert needs to regrow his fringe stat! Right now he looks like a slick Rick Astley.

CHARTS FROM 30 TO 11

[4] BOBBY BROWN: on our own. Promo VT. If only Bobby Brown hadn't thrown a tantrum (allegedly) this might have been a studio performance. Think of all those lovely residuals you are missing from these BBC4 repeats, Bobby.

[38] DOUG LAZY: let it roll. Promo VT. Hang on. Five videos? This is as bad as last week's show. Come on Stanley. Ring some changes. Please?

[6] RUFUS AND CHAKA KHAN: ain't nobody. Promo VT. Evidentially the entire pop industry all went on holiday at the same time in 1989. I imagine it was like the Are You Being Served film with everyone going to the same hotel and all trying to use the buffet at the same time.

TOP 10

[1] SONIA: you'll never stop me from loving you. Oh fudge x3. I wanted another studio performance and I got this. Bad monkey's paw! No.

[32] THE CULT: edie (ciao baby) “Next week on Top of the Pops Mark Goodybags and Simon Parkin.” Ugh. I've just remembered how much I hated Mark Goodier's nickname.

 Performance of the week: The Blow Monkeys featuring Sylvia Tella, Choice?

27/07/1989
Mark Goodier: “Good evening and welcome to Top of the Pops. We're hot for the summer.”
Simon Parkin: “And a hot programme tonight. In the studio Bros, Sonia, and Kirsty MacColl.
Mark Goodier: “And on video tonight we have Simple Minds and Simply Red and Gloria Estefan.”
Simon Parkin: “But to start with, a brand new entry at thirty three, here are The Primitives, Sick Of It.”

[33] THE PRIMITIVES: sick of it. Hold the front page! The VT Clock at the start of the master tape is wrong. It gives the transmission (TX) date as 26/7/89 but that was a Wednesday. Top of the Pops is broadcast on Thursday between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles' first LP Regional News programmes and Eastenders. If only I can get into the Written Archive Centre, I can try and find the person responsible for this howler.

Meanwhile, there's a new Quantel effect. Which, now I come to write about it I realise I'm going to struggle to describe. The output of two cameras is shrunk down into a pair of windows. The two windows are then angled as if the one at the top is slicing in to the one at the bottom, and the correct bits of each window are obscured to give the whole thing a sense of perspective. The effect is pleasingly Escher-like, and works well because the background is a still from the title sequence; with lots of motion blur on it, to give a sense of speed. I could just put a screengrab here but why should I do all the work. Use your imagination.

Well done Dave Chapman on Video Effects and Vision Mixer Priscilla Hoadley.

On the subject of the behind the scenes staff, Paul Ciani is back from holiday. This might account for the use of Quantel; something which Stanley Appel didn't play around with so much last week.

[6] GLORIA ESTEFAN: don't wanna lose you. Promo VT.

CHARTS FROM 40 TO 31

[28] INNER CITY: do you love what you feel. Promo VT.

[14] KIRSTY MacCOLL: days. Dickie Higham is on Lighting and boy does he do a great job on the early moments of this performance. The studio lights are doused, except for the neon tubes and a couple of white lights on Kirsty MacColl, who is seated.

MacColl's band are barely illuminated against the dark mass of the studio. The effect highlights MacColl and focuses all attention on her even as the camera pulls back and away from the stage and she shrinks into the picture, or she is photographed through the scenery from an adjacent stage.

The lights very slowly come on as the song builds to the first chorus and MacColl stands and walks forwards to a microphone, and from this point the performance becomes a lot more conventional. There's nothing wrong with it but the opening shots look so good that I wish the decision had been made to keep her seated and the lights down. It's a real shame to lose the beauty of those opening moments. (John's pop fact- Days was written by Ray Davies of The Kinks)

BREAKERS:

[35] GUN: better days

[37] PAUL McCARTNEY: this one

[36] THE STONE ROSES: she bangs the drums

[23] SIMPLE MINDS: kick it in. Promo VT.

[2] BROS: too much. Craig has sensibly hit the eject button. To hide this, Bros have taken on two extra people, a keyboard player and another bloke playing the guitar who might be Craig if you don't know what Craig looks like. (John's pop fact - Craig (aka Ken) had left the band by now)

I don't really care about the Bros lineup? Do you care? What I do care about is spotting Sophie Aldred because tonight's edition of Top of the Pops was recorded at the same time as the first studio sessions for the Doctor Who story Ghost Light. I'm pretty sure I've spotted her but she's not terribly visible because she's wearing her black tie costume from the dinner party scenes. Apparently Sylvester McCoy was there as well but I can't see him. Imagine how disappointing it would be to sneak into the Top of the Pops studio to discover you've missed Kirsty MacColl.

Thanks to the magic of Doctor Who studio dates it's possible to identify this Bros performance as a pre-recorded one. The first studio session for Ghost Light took place over Tuesday 18th and Wednesday 19th July. Recording for Top of the Pops and Ghost Light can only have overlapped on Wednesday 19th. It turns out Sophie Aldred didn't miss Kirsty MacColl after all, but she did miss the London Boys or The Blow Monkeys or Sonia. Personally I wouldn't be too sad about that last one; The Blow Monkeys > London Boys > Bros > Sonia.

CHARTS FROM 30 TO 11

[17] SIMPLY RED: a new flame. Promo VT.

TOP 10

[1] SONIA: you'll never stop me from loving you. Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers at [3] and Bros straight in at [2]. Do I wish for a new song at [1] next week or hope that Sonia stays at the top? Another finger slowly curls on the monkey's paw.... uh-oh.

[34] ALICE COOPER: poison. Promo VT. Steve Wright and Jenny Powell next week.

 Performance of the week: Kirsty MacColl, Days.